Teacups and Town Squares
by idreamof
Summary: After Luke kicks Jess out in season 3, Jess realizes he has nowhere else to go. Rated M, very dark, read the warning, please. Title under construction, suggestions welcome.
1. Chapter 1

AN: This starts off after Luke tells Jess to leave, since Jess says he won't be going back to school. Season 3, I'm not sure what episode. It's my first Gilmore Girls fic, so I hope the characterizations are okay, and I haven't written anything even remotely fic-esque in a while. I have no beta, so pointing out any errors I miss would be very much appreciated – just please be nice :)

---

Jess stood staring at the wall after Luke stormed off. He was no longer welcome here -Luke had made that quite clear. At a time when everything in his life was going wrong, the one thing he'd thought wouldn't get messed up, had gotten messed up. And what was left for him? He couldn't go back to his mother, that much was obvious. His father? He had met him that day for the first time – he didn't even know where he lived. The only place left was Luke's, and Luke had just very officially kicked him out. Going over to his dresser, he shuffled around in the top drawer to find his wallet. Picking it up, he opened it and flipped through the cash – it wasn't much, but he figured it would do. He knew Luke wasn't going to be giving him anything anytime soon – or ever for that matter – but there had to be pay from Wal-Mart in his account. Maybe he'd give it to Luke, to get Kyle's parents off of his back. He owed him that much, for sure, and he wasn't going to be anyone's burden any longer – not his mother's, not his father's, not Luke's… not Rory's problem, either. He was done with all of it – no more New York, no more Stars Hollow, no more school, no more diner, no more Wal-Mart.

Pocketing his wallet again, he made his way out of the apartment, down the stairs, and out of the diner. He could hear someone shuffling around in the kitchen – must be Luke, cleaning up… or maybe venting frustration on some poor, unsuspecting waffle iron. He made sure to open the door slowly, trying to make the ringing of the bell as quiet as possible, and closed it softly behind him. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, wishing he had brought a jacket to block out the biting wind, but didn't dare going back to the diner to get it. The drug store was just down the street, and if he thought hard enough about what he knew he was going to do, the cold seemed insignificant, and dismissible, in comparison. It was late, and the streets were empty. He knew the drug store would be closing soon, so he picked up his pace slightly. He needed to get there in time. The store owner barely acknowledged him when he got there, but he paid him no heed and headed directly for the back of the store. Looking through the shelves, he picked out the biggest bottle of Extra-Strength Advil he could find. He knew Luke had a bottle at home, and he knew they rarely used it, but he didn't know…  
He pushed that thought to the back of his mind. He had run out of options – this was his last one. Thinking about what might just happen if he didn't think this through far enough wasn't going to help him. He put the bottle on the counter and pulled out the money to pay for it.

Having made his purchase, he left the store, and made his way back home – or the diner, or the apartment. Luke's apartment. It wouldn't do to keep thinking of it as home. It wasn't his home anymore, if it ever had been. He pushed aside the little part of his brain that kept bugging him that, yes, he had come to think of it as home. It was easier to pretend that he had never even considered the thought. It was just a place he had stayed. Not lived, because living kind of implied…other things. Other things he didn't want to think about.

Making his way through the diner, and up the stairs to the apartment, he noticed the light under the bathroom door. The shower was running, so that meant that Luke wouldn't be out for another five to ten minutes or so. He shoved the bottle into his bag, which, even after it had long been unpacked, still sat to the side of the dresser, as if it knew that this day – the day when he'd again be leaving – would come. Kicking off his shoes, he ignored the fact that he was still in his jeans, and climbed under the covers of the bed that he refused to admit to himself that he had come to appreciate – that he had come to take comfort in, to feel safe in. Jess Mariano didn't need some bed to feel safe. Jess Mariano had no sort of silly attachments to bed sheets and flannel-obsessed uncles and morning rushes in small-town diners. He didn't need any of it, and if it didn't want him, he didn't want it either. One more night, and he'd be gone for good, and it (not Luke, he refused to focus on Luke) would never have to deal with him again. He turned his head to the side, and closed his eyes, hoping that some sort of easy sleep would come to him soon, so he could stop thinking about the next day's morning. He'd deal with it when it came.

---

So, there it is. I know it's short, but I will work on making the next chapters longer. Any corrections are appreciated. Please review!


	2. Chapter 2

AN: It is 1:54…in the morning. And what am I doing? Writing. Soo…here we go…

WARNING: THIS CHAPTER IS ABOUT SUICIDE, AND IS RATED M. BE AWARE,

AND IF YOU EVER CONSIDER DOING THIS TYPE OF THING YOURSELF, PLEASE, DON'T - TALK TO SOMEONE, AND GET HELP.

---

Jess woke with a soft gasp, the images of New York, and his mother, and Rory, and his father, and Luke, and Luke's words from the night before still blurring before his eyes and ringing in his ears. He rubbed at his face with shaking hands – he didn't need them (or, really, his dream images of them) to tell him that he was useless, that he was worthless. He didn't need them yelling about how he wasn't going to graduate high school, how he'd never get anywhere in his life. He didn't need the flashes of his mother's many previous boyfriends towering over him to tell him that he could never go back to New York. He didn't need Rory, or Lorelai, telling him what a jerk he was, how he'd never belong in Stars Hollow, how Stars Hollow had never wanted him in the first place. He knew it all (and he reasoned, that, really, it was because he knew it all, and knew it all very well, that his subconscious took the time to remind him of it in his dreams.) But he had already made his choice. He had nowhere to go from where he was. Luke was kicking him out, his mother had already kicked him out, his father couldn't even bring himself to say more than a few words to him, and Rory probably hated him at least as much as her mother always had, but probably more.

He had nothing left for him. Where would he go? The streets? He hardly had enough money to support himself for more than a week or so – and he had already decided to give it to Luke, in the hopes that it would pay off Kyle's parents, or at least come close. He wasn't going to owe anyone anything, and he wasn't going to be anyone's burden for any longer. He sat up slowly, blinking a few times to clear the last remnants of sleep from his eyes. He shifted slightly to look at the clock – 5:34 in the morning. Luke would be up soon, to get ready and then go prepare the diner for the early morning rush. He pushed the blankets off of him, and swung his legs to the side of the bed. He had made his decision, he reminded himself. There was nothing to do about it now. He quietly made his way over to where his bag sat by the wall, beside the dresser, neglecting to put on his shoes, as they would make too much noise. Picking up the bag, he brought it back to his bed and dumped out its contents – a pair of rolled up socks, an old t-shirt he never wore, and his copy of _Gulliver's Travels_ fell onto the bed, but he moved them to the side to get what he knew he had put into the bag last – the bottle of pills. Picking it up, he gripped it tightly, taking a deep breath in an attempt to quell the shaking, but it was of no use. The tremors continued. He assumed he might just be nervous, but the nerves did nothing to dissuade him from what he knew he was going to do. He knew he had made his decision. He had made his choice.

He padded over to the bathroom, and hoping that it wouldn't creek, pushed it slowly open, before going inside and shutting the door. He opened the medicine cabinet, staring at the sink to avoid looking at his reflection in the mirror on the cabinet door. Once it was open, he glanced back up, scanning the shelves carefully. He extracted Luke's bottle of Advil from behind the cup of toothbrushes, and, putting the two bottles on the counter, resumed his search. There was a bottle of prescription painkillers on the top shelf, prescribed to one Lucas Danes. He vaguely recalled that Luke had sprained his wrist a few months back, doing some work, or something. "Probably fixing something or other at a certain dark haired, fast-talking, coffee-loving someone's house," was Jess's stray thought. He pushed it to the side of his mind. He had other things to think about, like trying to focus on the task at hand, and forget about what he was going to do. He uncovered an old razor blade, underneath a box of tissues on the second shelf. He picked it up, and, after wiping the dust and dirt on it off with his shirt, turned it over in his hands. The light from the ceiling light in the bathroom glinted slightly off of the surface. He put it down with the two three bottles. He didn't know if three was too little, or too many, but it didn't really matter. He was sure he'd succeed regardless.

Turning the lock on the door, he poured himself a glass of water, and sat down on the floor, reaching up to the sink to bring the bottles and the blade down to the floor. Tears were blurring his vision by that point, but he ignored them. Nobody was there to see him cry, and looking at the bigger picture, it wouldn't matter if he cried with gasping, hiccupping sobs anyway – just as long as Luke didn't hear him.

He opened all three pill bottles.

Picking up the blade, he leaned his head against the door, trying to will his hands to stop shaking. Staring up at the light fixture on the ceiling, he brought the blade to his wrist, forcing his breath to remain as steady as possible as he drew it up the length of his forearm. He could hardly keep himself steady enough as he transferred the blade to his other hand to repeat the process on his other arm. Refusing to look down at the damage that he knew he would see, he blindly felt around the floor for the bottles. Finding one, he swept the floor with his hand, knocking over the row of them, the pills spilling to the floor in a clatter. He picked up a few into his hand, and, closing his eyes, tossed them into his mouth. Dry-swallowing them, he moved his hand to the pile to pick up another few. He managed to swallow without the water a few more times, but found that he reached a point where he needed the water. Reaching over with hands that were shaking harder than he cared to admit, he slowly brushed his fingers along the floor till he felt the base of the glass. Managing to pick it up without spilling too much of the water, he slowly brought it to his lips, and used it to wash down the pills. A few more sets – he couldn't tell if it was three or twelve or twenty – and his hands were shaking so hard that the glass clattered to the floor. He picked it up again, and brought it to his lips, not remembering that the water wasn't in it anymore, but instead spilled on the tile of the bathroom floor. There was a piece of the glass missing, where a shard had broken off, and it nicked his lip. He paid the blood dripping down his chin no heed, however, and reached over for another pill.

He couldn't see straight, he couldn't think straight, and his entire body was starting to feel extremely numb. He thought he might have heard Luke's heavy footsteps on the other side of the door, but he couldn't be sure. He wasn't even sure about the distant throbbing he felt in his head, or the feeling of wetness dripping down his arms, pooling around his legs. Everything seemed detached, nothing made sense, and the ceiling lamp was no longer bright, but instead seemed to be tinged with grey. He tried to stand up – he needed more water – but he couldn't bring himself to. Instead, he forced the last pill down his throat, and gave in to the darkness that was creeping in from the corners, that had been creeping in his entire life. He didn't need to fight it anymore.


	3. Chapter 3

AN: I forgot to put a disclaimer on the first chapter, so let this one apply for anything and everything in this story – I DO NOT OWN GILMORE GIRLS. I also do not own Advil, or Gulliver's Travels, or anything else that you recognize in this story. Please don't sue me.

Also, this story deals with dark and sensitive themes, and is rated M.

---

Luke woke up to the buzzing of his alarm at 6:00. Reaching out a heavy hand to turn it off, he pushed himself out of bed, and, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, made his way over to the small kitchen in the apartment. Glancing quickly at Jess's bed, he noticed that it was empty. Guilt ran through him at the thought of his teenaged nephew – he really hadn't meant to be as harsh as he was the night before. He was angry, though he knew that was no excuse, and he hadn't really wanted to kick him out. Yes, the kid wasn't going to graduate, and was refusing to go back, but where else did he have to go? Liz obviously wasn't going to take him back, and Jimmy? He didn't even want to think about Jimmy Mariano – what right did he have to show up like that, out of the blue, and expect things to be… well, however it was he was expecting them to be. Luke had detested the man since he first met him, since Liz first introduced him as the "one", so many years ago. And that hate had grown the more he got to know him, the more he saw his lack of commitment, his lack of initiative, his tendencies to rely far too much on certain substances and activities. He figured that the hate had peaked when he realized, sitting there with Liz and a tiny Jess, that Jimmy hadn't really gone out to buy diapers, but now, thinking about his eighteen year old nephew, who was going nowhere in life, and really didn't need a visit from his screwed up, estranged father to throw him off even more, he thought that hate might have grown even more.

And then there was Jess. God, Jess – he didn't know what he was going to do. Now that the anger had faded, the desperation had dulled… he knew that he hadn't really wanted Jess to leave. He knew that a small part of him had been hoping that, when faced with the ultimatum, Jess might give in, and go back to school, sort himself out. But he hadn't made any indication that he had even considered that as an option, and, even after Luke had returned from cleaning up at the diner (despite the fact that it had already been done by Caesar, Luke had gone back down just for the sake of doing…something, other than having to be faced with his failure at fixing Jess's problems), Jess had been asleep, had apparently gone to bed without saying a word to Luke – and Luke somehow knew that his nephew fully planned on being gone come morning.

It was morning just then, and Luke wasn't sure what to do. Jess was nowhere in sight, but he noticed his bag was still by the dresser. Maybe he had reconsidered? He really hoped Jess was reconsidering – he could still go back to school the next year, he could still graduate. Jess was smart, he just wasn't dedicated enough – and he had harboured some sort of delusion that he needed to work constantly to pay for…whatever it was. Supporting him was supposed to be Luke's job – Jess should have just been responsible for school.

By that point, Luke was resolute – he'd talk to Jess, convince him one way or another to stay, and things would go right the next year. He went to check Jess's bed again – his shoes were still there, his bag was sitting beside his bed, and, aside from a shirt he didn't recognize, as well as a few other belongings lying on Jess's bed, nothing was out of place. He felt like he had been given a second chance. Jess wasn't the kind of person to go running off with nothing. He would, surely, be back – either to talk to Luke, or to gather his stuff, but one conversation was all Luke needed, and he wasn't going anywhere.

He set about making pancakes for breakfast. He glanced at his watch. It was getting close to when he should be opening the diner, but he still had some time – and sorting things out with Jess was more important to him anyway. The town could wait. All he needed now was for Jess to get home, so they could talk. He stood up to check downstairs on the chance that Jess had gone down to the diner, and, standing by the door, took one last cursory glance around the apartment. That was when he noticed that there was light shining out from the cracks in the door to the bathroom – how had he been so stupid? It should have been one of the first places to check. But then, he had been awake for over half an hour by then, and he hadn't heard the water running, or footsteps, or anything from the bathroom in that time. Frowning, he made his way over to the bathroom door, hoping that Jess hadn't just left the light on, closed the door, and gone out to avoid suspicion, or for whatever other reasons his sometimes strange nephew might come up with.

It wasn't until he was standing right up by the door, with his fist poised to knock, that it registered that he was standing in something. Moving his feet a bit, he tried to quell the panic that threatened to rise at the realization that it was too dark to be water – that it was too _red_ to be water. Bile rose in his throat, but he managed to keep it down, running possible explanations through his mind. The only thing he could come up with that would explain everything so far, was that Jess had decided to die his hair red, with a massive puddle of red…something, and had been sitting to let the colour set, or seep in, or whatever hair colouring does, for the past over-half-an-hour, from before the time Luke had awoken. And somehow, he knew that wasn't the case – Jess just wasn't a dye-my-hair-strange-colours kind of person.

He knocked once – no answer. He knocked again, and still there was no response. He kept on knocking until, without realizing it, he was banging on the door as hard as he could with one hand, fiddling with the doorknob with the other, and screaming Jess's name at the top of his lungs. Finally, taking a shuddering breath, he took a step back and kicked the door in, hardly flinching at the loud crashing he heard in the bathroom. It wasn't till he had moved the door to the side and gone into the room that he realized what he had done – why kicking in the door had seemed harder than he thought it would. Jess was lying, clearly unconscious, or worse, curled over with his head leaning against the base of the toilet. He hadn't just had to kick the door in, but he had moved Jess, who had been leaning against the door, as well.

Luke wasn't really one for horror movies, but this felt like the worst horror movie he could ever have imagined. Three empty medication bottles – two Advil bottles, and one for prescription pain meds he recognized as his own, were lying, empty, amidst small piles of pills that were spilled on the floor. There was a broken glass lying, empty, on its side, and an old razor blade he had forgotten he still kept glinted ominously in the corner. The entire mess was tinted red, and Jess was crumpled in the middle of it.

"Jess?" His voice was hardly a whisper. He backed away, slowly, before stumbling back out of the bathroom, trying desperately not to pay attention to the pills and the blood and the way his mind was screaming incoherently at him.

Before he really realized where he was, he was dialling 911 with shaking fingers, stumbling over an explanation to the person on the line. And then he was back in the bathroom, phone pressed to his ear by his shoulder, hardly paying attention to anything other than the still figure in front of him. He reached out for his nephew, drew his hands back, and then finally reached the full way, and gently turned him over.

Jess's face was pale, blood trailing grotesquely from his lip, down his chin, and onto his shirt. Luke didn't know what to do. He thought that he should maybe get a towel, or a sheet, or something to wipe at the blood, but all he could bring himself to do was to draw his nephew into his chest, the phone clattering to the floor, and clutch at his bloody shirt, muffling his sobs in Jess's hair. He wished that he could hear the sirens in the distance, but he knew it was too soon. The world around them was silent.

--

Please review!


	4. Chapter 4

AN: I know nothing medical-wise. Please forgive any mistakes, and if this is totally out there.

---

A few minutes later, Luke really could hear the faint wailing of the sirens in the distance, and he felt like he might be able to breathe again. Coherent thoughts started to filter in through the panic that had permeated his mind. Help was coming. It was then that he realized that he hadn't checked Jess over, or done anything, other than clutch at him. He put still shaking fingers to Jess neck, searching for a pulse – and there was one. Faint, and slightly irregular – although that might just have been from the way he, himself was shaking – but he felt he could definitively say that there _was_ one there.

"Oh my god." And he pulled Jess in tighter.

It when he could hear the sirens coming getting louder, that he realized that the diner wasn't unlocked, that nobody was there to meet the paramedics. It seemed like a silly thing to do, as Jess was unconscious, but Luke felt he needed to do it anyway – he kissed Jess on the forehead, held him just a bit closer, and whispered into his ear, "I'm so sorry, kid. I'll make it up to you, I swear, but right now I gotta go meet the EMS people, so you stay right here, and I'll be right back, I promise." Jess, as expected, made no response, and Luke gently lay him back down on the bathroom floor, wishing that he had brought something in to cushion Jess's head with.

He then ran through the apartment, down the stairs, and to the diner door, which he unlocked and propped open. He could see the ambulance coming then, lights flashing and siren wailing ominously. When it arrived, he led the paramedics into the diner and up the stairs, to the bathroom where Jess still lay. He didn't know what they were doing, what _he_ should be doing, whether he should be getting anything. He stood nervously off to the side as he let them do their work, and before he knew what was happening, they were taking Jess downstairs, were loading him into the back of the ambulance, and were taking off down the road again. He knew he ought to get in his truck and follow, but at that moment he couldn't do anything but stare at the ambulance's retreating lights, it's wailing echoing through his head, in time with the rhythmic pounding of his headache.

He looked around, and was surprised to see that a crowd had formed around the diner. He didn't know why he was surprised at all, since half of the people he recognized as his regular morning crowd, and the other half he recognized as regular town gossips, who had clearly heard the sirens and come to investigate. He felt like he should say something, and opened his mouth several times, but couldn't come up with the words to say, and therefore settled for going back into the diner, and closing and locking the door behind him. He ran back upstairs to grab his shoes, wallet, and keys, and then was right back out the door, jumping into his truck, and speeding off in the direction of the hospital, leaving the muttering crowd behind him.

---

Lorelai was up and about surprisingly early, but she had wanted to pick up breakfast before Rory was up, to save Rory from having to go to the diner, and from having to face Jess so soon after everything had happened. Another thing she found surprising, other than how she was up so early in the morning, was that she was up and feeling chipper so early in the morning. She had also been surprised by how much she felt like walking to the diner that morning. It was a nice morning, sunny, but crisp and refreshing at the same time. She also thought far enough ahead to put on comfortable shoes for the walk, and so she enjoyed herself, watching the small town wake up, taking her time making her way to the square.

It was a morning of surprises.

Upon her arrival, she was met with a mass of people crowded around Luke's diner, milling about and talking in hushed tones, frowns and expressions of shock marring their faces. Her own brows creased in confusion as she came up to them.

"What's going on?" she asked nobody in particular. No one seemed to hear her. She noticed Kirk in the centre of the group and squeezed her way through it to reach him. "Kirk? What's going on?" Kirk turned around. He was holding a basket full of apples, and wearing a green baseball cap that read "Doose's", and a Doose's apron. "Kirk?"

He handed her an apple. "Come to Doose's".

"What?"

"Luke's is closed. Come to Doose's." She stared at him for a second, in shock.

"What?"

"Luke's is cl-" she cut him off.

"Yeah, I got that. But why is it closed? How can it be closed? He should have been open…" she checked her watch, "twenty minutes ago. He can't be closed today, I was supposed to get Rory pancakes, so I could take them back to her. I need to get Rory pancakes!"

"Would you like another apple? Come to Doose's." She shook her head, putting the first apple back in the basket.

"We don't do apples, Kirk. We need pancakes. Chocolate chip pancakes. Now, where is Luke? Is he upstairs? Has anyone tried throwing rocks at his window? I can do a bit of a Romeo impersonation, I think. Although I don't know if he threw rocks at Juliet's window. Did they have windows back then? Did they have rocks? Well of course they had rocks, but did they throw rocks? Did they throw rocks at windows? Come to think of it, was it even Romeo that would have done the throwing? Was it Juliet? Kirk? Has anyone seen Luke?"

"Oh, sweetie, he left." She turned around to face Miss Patty.

"What do you mean, he left?"

"I'm so sorry honey, you didn't hear?"

"Hear what? Why is finding out what's going on so hard?"

"Sweetie, he's at the hospital."

"What?"

"With Jess."

"_What_?"

"The ambulance came this morning."

"Wait, who's hurt? Luke and Jess are at the hospital, is Luke hurt? Is Jess hurt? Are they both hurt?"

"Well I don't know, sugar. Jess is the one the paramedics took away, but Luke was covered in blood, and it looked like he'd been crying, the poor thing, but…"

"Luke?" Lorelai was in shock. "Luke, _crying_? And Jess got taken away? Does anybody know what happened?" Miss Patty shook her head.

"No, we just saw the ambulance come, and Jess be taken away, lying there all still and pale and bloody, and Luke covered in blood too and crying… but nobody knows what actually happened. We also don't know when the diner's gonna open."

"Well, if Luke and Jess are both in the hospital, I don't think he's going to be opening anytime soon, Patty. But you said Luke was standing? And the ambulance didn't take him?"

"No, he drove after them himself."

"Well, then at least he's well enough to drive. That's a relief."

"It is, sweetheart. Jess, though – poor boy. I hope he's gonna be ok, they were awful frenzied, taking him away."

"God, yeah, I hope so too.

---

"Rory? Rory, honey?" Lorelai was back at her house, digging through cupboards for cereal at the same time as she was berating herself for even thinking about breakfast when she knew what she knew. She wondered why Luke hadn't called her yet – did he have a cell phone? Well, considering his apparent hatred of them, she assumed he didn't, but he still might. He needed to get one, so he could call her. Would he call her? She hoped he would call her, in a situation like this. She considered him one of her best friends, despite past disagreements. She knew _she_ would call _him_, if she were in his place – that is, as long as he was _capable_ of calling her. What if something else had happened? What if he _couldn't_ call her? What if he really shouldn't have driven off on his own, after the ambulance? She vowed that, when she did see him again, she would make him pay for making her worry so.

It wasn't fair though – blaming him for scaring her. If something was wrong with Jess, Luke was probably out of his mind with worry. He was curt and quiet, and sometimes as monosyllabic as Jess, but Lorelai knew that he really did care deeply about his nephew. He had been trying so hard to do right by Jess, to help him when no one else had. And what had Jess done in return? Driven Luke – and the rest of the town – crazy. The kid grated on her nerves. He hurt Rory, he hurt Luke – and now he was in the hospital? Lorelai didn't know what to make of it. She would never wish physical harm on him, for sure, but she didn't know if everything he'd ever done, everything he'd ever said, could just be forgiven, just like that, without an explanation. She knew that Rory, previous to her recent disagreements with him, had always insisted that there was a side to him that she didn't know, but she really hadn't gotten a chance to see it. She thought, that maybe once he was better, and whatever was going on was over, she might get a chance, but lately Jess had been surlier than usual, and brusquer than usual, and ruder than usual, and even Rory was upset with him, by that point.

She knew, though, that she had to put past disputes aside, for a while. Forgive things, for the time being, and either hope that the explanations for them would surface, given time, or leave them to be sorted out later, when whatever was going on was over, and fixed, and the world was right again – when she knew that both Luke and Jess were home and safe and healthy. She still had no idea what was going on, but whatever it was, she was sure that Luke needed her, at the very least. Rory needed her. And she knew, despite what she might want to believe, that Jess might just need her too.

AN: Please review, constructive criticism is appreciated.


	5. Chapter 5

AN: Again, I apologize for any errors – I know nothing about medical stuff, or the American school system. To quote that beer commercial, "I am Canadian." I spell like a Canadian (I think…). That said, please review, if you do read this.

---

When Rory came downstairs and to the kitchen, she was met with the sight of her mother holding a spoon with both hands, staring at it intently, a bowl of cereal sitting untouched in front of her.

"Trying to bend that?" Lorelai looked up.

"Huh?"

"The spoon. Thinking of leaving the Independence and joining some sort of … mind-bending, telekinesis troupe thing?" Lorelai realized what she was talking about, and put the spoon down.

"Oh. No, I just… Rory, honey, there's something you need to know." Rory was starting to get nervous. Something was off – she couldn't tell what, but something was clearly wrong.

"What's wrong?"

"It's…um… we're having cereal for breakfast." Rory looked at her sceptically.

"That's it?"

"Well… we have pop, and leftover take-out, I think, in the fridge. And juice, cause I'm sure there's something out there against having coke for breakfast, but really, when has that ever stopped us? Or maybe there isn't cause people have pop all the time, right?" She was rambling, and she knew it.

"Mom, no, I don't mean about the food… but that's all that's wrong?" Lorelai looked at her daughter nervously.

"Rory…"

"Come on, Mom, tell me. That can't be the only thing that's up. We've had cereal for breakfast before, no big deal."

"Luke's is closed."

"Oh. Did you have something to talk to him about? Don't worry about it, you can call him, or something. I'm sure he'll be open later. What was it you needed him for?" Lorelai looked even more nervous.

"Rory, It's closed because Luke's in the hospital."

"_What_? What happened?" Rory looked worriedly at her mother. Lorelai tore her eyes away from her daughters and instead turned to stare at the table, fiddling with her spoon again. This was the hard part. She knew her daughter had been having a rough time with her boyfriend lately, and that she hadn't really wanted to see him, to take a bit of time away from him to sort things out. The latest development made an already difficult situation ten times harder.

"Luke's in the hospital… with Jess."

"Oh god, what happened?"

"Nobody knows. Jess, though… Jess was the one taken away in the ambulance. Luke followed. But nobody knows what was wrong with Jess, or if Luke really wasn't hurt cause he was covered in blood and they said Luke looked like he'd been _crying_. _Luke_, _crying_… it's not right. Well, nothing in this situation is right, it's all wrong. Jess should never have had to have been taken away in an ambulance, and blood… there's nothing even remotely right about this situation, and I'm so sorry, honey, what with everything that's been going on already. It's all so screwed up, and we still don't know what's really wrong cause as far as I know, Luke hasn't called anybody yet. Well, he hasn't called us yet, he might have called someone else, and they might just not have told anybody. I…" she trailed off.

"Oh god." Rory sat down in the chair beside her mother, unable to say anything else.

"Yeah."

"So what are we going to do?" Lorelai put the spoon down and started wringing her hands anxiously.

"I don't know, babe."

"Do we wait here? Do we go there? Hartford General, right? Unless… well that's the closest one, they should be there? Right? Mom?" Lorelai sighed, putting a hand on her daughter's shoulder.

"Honey, I don't really know what we can do for them right now. We haven't heard anything, we don't know what's going on…"

"So what? We just go to school and pretend like nothing's happening?"

"I guess… listen, Rory… how about you go to school, and try to focus on that, for today. I can take the day off from the inn, and just stay here in case Luke _does_ call. As soon as we know what's going on, I'll pass it on to you, and if you need to come home, I'll call the school and tell them that you have my permission to. Or, really, you'll be in Hartford anyway, so if we're going to the hospital there, I'll come pick you up, or something. But for now, just… try to do your schoolwork, pay attention in class, all that good stuff, okay?" Rory sighed. She wasn't really happy with it, but there wasn't anything she could see that she could do anyway. So, she got up again to get herself a bowl for her cereal, then sat back down beside her mother, poured herself some cereal and milk, and they ate their breakfast together, in silence.

---

It was noon, and Luke still hadn't eaten breakfast. Really, he hadn't even thought about it, after he had found Jess. But now… now that he had been told that Jess was in stable condition was being taken to be settled in a room – now that the panic of the morning seemed to be over, and everything was relatively calm, he was coming to realize that he was, in fact, hungry. And the feeling lasted for all of five minutes, until a nurse came up to him to give him a selection of pamphlets on different kinds of depression, and suicide awareness, and he lost his appetite all over again.

He put the pamphlets down, doubtful that he could deal with them right at that moment, and glanced around the waiting room. He had spent the last few hours there, first filling out forms, and then sitting, staring at his lap, wringing his hands while that mornings events ran through his head on repeat, his words from the night before ringing through his head, thoughts of the time he had spent that morning making _pancakes_, of all things, taunting him, causing an almost physical ache, deep inside his chest. His head, on the other hand, really was pounding, and his eyes were red and swollen from his tears. On any other day, he might have been surprised with himself, but at that particular moment, he couldn't care less – he, Luke Danes, tough guy extraordinaire had spent his morning alternating between staring at his knees in an almost-stupor, and crying with muffled sobs about the nephew he had somehow failed miserably to save.

That he had failed him, he was very sure – yes, he did know that Jess was alive and stable at that point, but alive and stable was never enough. How hadn't he noticed that something was so terribly wrong with Jess? How could he have said what he said to him? Anger was no excuse. And suddenly, everything Jess had ever done seemed like a cry for help – a cry that he hadn't even acknowledged. He knew the kid was messed up, he knew that his life in New York had been hard, knew that he was having trouble in school, knew that, despite his brusque attitude, he really must be hurting underneath it all, and yet he had left Jess to deal with his problems on his own. He had assumed that Jess was fully capable of taking care of it. It was clear now, that he hadn't been. It was clear now that he must have been hurting, for it had led him to attempt… he couldn't even say the word in his head. How hadn't he noticed the puddle under the bathroom door earlier? How hadn't he woken up when Jess went and did… he tried to block out the images from his mind, but it was to no avail. So, he stood up from the chair he had been waiting in for the past few hours, and took another look around the room.

He spotted the payphone in the corner, and went over to it. He was sure he had to call someone. In any situation like the one he was in, there were always calls to be made. But to whom? He supposed that he ought to call Liz – she was Jess's mother, after all – but after several tries, and only being able to get her answering machine, he slammed the phone down on the receiver and leaned heavily on the wall beside the phone. He was running out of quarters. He needed to carry more quarters. "Note to self – quarters, Luke, quarters." And then he realized he was talking to himself, and, with a shake of his head, picked up the phone again. He almost laughed out loud at the thought of calling Jimmy. Jimmy was probably halfway to California by that time, maybe even all the way there. Or, really, Jimmy being Jimmy, he might not even be headed back to California at all. Maybe he was taking a trip to Alaska. Or Hawaii. Luke didn't know, but at that point, he didn't really care. Once he contacted Liz (though a part of him felt like she didn't deserve a call either), if she had kept in touch with Jimmy, if she had kept him updated on Jess's life, then she could call him. It was her choice. He wasn't going to make that call.

He played with the remaining quarters in his hand. Rory… he knew that she and Jess had had a fight of some sort, but she would need to know. The truth might hurt her, but she would need to be told eventually. She was probably at school, though – it was noon, and it was a weekday. That left Lorelai. He considered calling the inn, but instead dialled her cell number. He might hate cell phones, but he still had her number memorized – she was one of his closest friends. In fact, she probably was his _best_ friend. And though he felt that the call might be a bit selfish, as he was here for Jess, and Jess, despite dating her daughter, hardly talked to Lorelai at all, and didn't really get along with her, he found himself waiting as the phone rang, desperately hoping that she would pick up soon.

"Hello?"

"Thank god… Lorelai."

"_Luke_?"

"I…yeah." He could feel the tears threatening to fall again. He really was a mess.

"Oh, jeeze. How are you? What happened? Nobody in town knows anything, other than there was blood and an ambulance and Jess got taken away but we hadn't heard from you so we thought that maybe something had happened to you too, but now you're calling, so hopefully you're fully ok, because even though you might be well enough to call something else might be wrong and I've been home all day and Rory's at school and we've been _so_ worried, and… Luke? Luke?" She could hear his breath hitching over the phone. "_Luke_?"

"Yeah." He took a deep breath. "Yeah, Lorelai, Jess… Well, I'm ok. There's nothing wrong with me at all. Well, I guess you could say that there's something wrong, because I messed up. I messed up so bad, Lorelai, and all this is completely my fault, and I can't believe I didn't notice anything sooner, and if I had seen it, or heard something, and not have been so _stupid_, then we might not…he might not even…"

"Luke?"

"Y-yeah?"

"Luke, just calm down. Calm down and slow down and tell me what happened, from the beginning." Luke mused to himself that the world really had been turned upside down when it was _Lorelai_ telling _him_ to calm down. But he did as she asked and, with another deep breath, started telling her what had happened that morning – from the pancakes, to regretting telling his nephew to get out, to looking for Jess, to seeing the blood, to kicking in the door and finding Jess lying on the floor, unconscious and bleeding and surrounded by pills and blood and glass, with the old razor beside him, to calling the ambulance and going to Hartford General, and, finally, to the torture of having to wait while they worked on Jess, having no idea what was going on, whether he had made it or not, or what to do with the situation once the immediate crisis was over.

Lorelai was silent for a while after he was done talking. On any other day, Luke might have marvelled that he had actually left _Lorelai_ speechless, but on that particular day, he was silently begging her to say something – to somehow come up with the good in the situation, to somehow make it better. On the other end of the line, Lorelai was wishing for the same thing – that she could somehow find the right words to say to comfort her friend, that she would somehow be able to fix the situation – but she knew she couldn't. Any words seemed inadequate at that point, so the only thing she could bring herself to say was "I'll be right there."


	6. Chapter 6

AN: I know nothing about medical stuff, so forgive any errors. The disclaimer from chapter 3 applies to everything.

Lorelai was in shock. Suicide? Out of all the things she might have expected, it had never crossed her mind that Jess might have attempted suicide. Suicide was a scary thing to just think about, but that Jess had actually attempted it? It was so hard to believe, and yet it was true. Luke had found him, surrounded by pills, and his own blood, with long gashes down his arms, and a broken glass and a razor blade lying beside him. Her only consolation was that Luke was ok – physically, at least. She knew that he must be a mess – when they had talked, she could hear his breath hitching over the phone.

And then there was Jess – Jess, who was lying in a hospital bed, who had taken a bunch of pills and cut his arms open in an attempt to _kill himself_. He had been hurting, that much was obvious. He had been hurting, and nobody had known to what extent, until it was too late. Rory had complained that he never talked to her about anything, but it was clear now that there were things that really should have been talked about, that weren't. Otherwise, Jess wouldn't be where he was right then.

She, herself, didn't really talk to Jess, and was regretting it deeply just then. What if she had been nicer to him, when he had first come to Stars Hollow? You always heard about the people who were rough on the outside, who were rude to hide their own hurts, but she had never believed Jess to be one of them. She had taken him at face value, and now she was paying for it. She knew that her regrets and her guilt couldn't and wouldn't change the situation, but she couldn't help them.

She was on her way to Hartford at that point, trying to obey the speed limit, but wishing that she could just pick some ridiculous speed, maybe 300 or 400 miles per hour, and be there in five minutes. Teleporting would be nice, too. Rory had mentioned telekinesis that morning. At that particular moment, though, she thought that teleportation would be a much more useful power. Luke needed her. Jess needed her. And it was then that she realized that she hadn't called Rory. She glanced at the time on the dashboard – 1:05. Rory would probably only have one more class left, maybe one and a bit. She would pick her up after school, she supposed. Or call her when school was done and tell her to make her way over to the hospital by bus. Picking her up just then would involve getting her out of class, which, when there was only one left, Lorelai didn't see the point of doing. More importantly, though, if Luke did end up needing to have the breakdown that she suspected he would need to have, he would definitely not want Rory to see it. No, contacting Rory would have to wait.

Reaching the hospital, she pulled into the visitor parking lot and turned off the car. Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm herself down before going inside. She wanted to freak out, to scream or cry or break down and pound her fists on the floor at the unfairness of it all, but she knew it would have to wait. If Luke was barely holding it together, he didn't need to see her fall apart. Luke and Jess had to be her first priorities just then. She didn't have time for a meltdown.

Making her way inside, she went up to the desk in the entrance hall and asked where she might find Jess Mariano.

"Room 432. Fourth floor, take the elevator, when you get out, turn left." She thanked the girl and went to find the room. The ride in the elevator was excruciatingly slow, and yet, when it was over, she wished she would have a few more minutes, before she had to face it all. She made her way down the hallway, turning left as instructed, and found the door to room 432. She put her hand on the doorknob, but then, reconsidering, brought it up to knock softly on the door. She heard a low murmuring of what she assumed was assent from inside the room, and slowly opened the door, peering inside.

Jess was lying, pale and still, in the hospital bed, surrounded by machines, tubes and wires running every which way. His arms were rested on top of the covers, and though there were various things attached to them, her eyes were drawn immediately to the thick bandages that covered his forearms. He looked like he was hardly breathing, and she might not have believed that he really was alive were it not for the beeping of the heart monitor in the background.

Luke was sitting in a chair beside his bed, and, though Jess was the one lying the hospital bed, she thought that Luke might actually look slightly worse for wear. Whereas Jess's face was clean, and, aside from his pallor, the only physical evidence to the incident were the bandages on his arms, Luke looked ragged, blood smeared eerily across his face, run through with tear streaks, red soaked into his shirt. He didn't look up till she whispered his name.

"Luke?" Tortured eyes met hers.

"Lorelai. Lorelai…I…" She was at his side in an instant, crouching beside his chair, her hands itching to grab him, to pull him into her embrace and never let go – but she held herself back for the moment.

"Luke…" He reached across to the bed to pick up one of a pile of pamphlets that was scattered over Jess's legs. The title read "Major Depressive Disorder – Signs, Symptoms, Causes," and it hit her about all the other frightening things that attempted suicide was connected with.

"Look at this, Lorelai. I never… I never thought that…he…" She took the pamphlet from him and opened it up. "See? All those things that I just passed off as Jess being Jess – all the times he skipped meals to go out for walks or to read or whatever it is he does, and being irritable, and insomnia – how many times have I seen or heard him get up in the middle of the night and not really paid any attention to it?" He picked up another pamphlet. "And kids in unstable homes are more at risk – Liz and her boyfriends and her …whatever it was that she did, or does… And kids who've had to see tough situations are more likely to be…it – and who knows what he saw on the streets in New York. Liz said he was having problems when she sent him here, didn't she? And it mentions how having to move to a completely new place, that kind of upheaval… you told me when he first came here that I should have talked to him about it, but I didn't think I needed to."

"Oh, Luke…"

"It's my fault! I should have seen… I should have noticed something. And there isn't anything in there about entire towns hating you and wanting you gone, but I'm sure that didn't help either." Lorelai looked down at the floor, guilt running through her. She definitely hadn't helped in that aspect. Luke waved the pamphlet he had in his hand, "Depression in Teens", around angrily. "It talks about how doing badly in school, and relationship problems can make it worse. And feeling lonely, and not having somebody to openly talk about problems with… I knew Jess had trust issues… he never talks about anything to anybody! I just… I never…"

Lorelai reached over to put the pamphlet she was holding back down on the bed and sighed. She had just been talking about how Jess never talked to anyone with Rory the day before, but now everything was taking on a new light. Nobody had guessed, and Jess had been dealing with his problems by himself.

"Luke, it's not your fault. You never could have known…"

"But I should have! He's my nephew, I should have!"

"Nobody saw this coming, Luke…"

"Nobody saw it coming? _Nobody saw it coming_? Nobody_ cared_! The whole damn town hated Jess from the moment he came. And I know that he didn't do anything to change their opinions of him, but… can you imagine? Can you imagine living in a place where the entire town can't stand the sight of you? Can you imagine having your mother send you to an uncle you haven't seen in years, because she doesn't want to deal with you anymore, only to find out that the entire town takes less than two days to decide that it hates you? Can you imagine having no friends and living with someone you hardly know?"

"Living in a town where the mother of the only person who would give you the time of day for all intents and purposes hates your guts and tries to keep you away from your only friend…" Luke looked up at her then, in shock.

"Lorelai…"

"No. I guess we all had a part to play in this. We won't know what he was really thinking, why he really did it, until he wakes up, but none of us really made anything easy on him."

"I told him he had to get out."

"What?"

"He told me he wasn't graduating high school."

"He's not graduating?"

"No. He skipped too many days. And then I told him that he was going to stay another year, and then go back to redo grade twelve and graduate. And he said no, so I told him that he'd have to leave. And then I just left him alone there, and I didn't really mean it, but I said it anyway, thinking that maybe he'd give in, but he didn't, and then when I came back he was sleeping and the next time I saw him he was unconscious in the bathroom in a puddle of his own blood. It's my fault, completely."

"Luke…"

"There's nothing else to it. I told him he had to go, and he…" Luke's voice hitched and tears welled in his eyes again, spilling over his cheeks. He didn't think he'd ever cried so much in his entire life. He had lost count of how many breakdowns he'd actually had since that morning. "He did."

Lorelai came around to face him, and sat down carefully on the edge of Jess's bed, mindful of the wires surrounding him. She put her hands on his shoulders for a moment, but then pulled him into her, and just let him cry. He wasn't wearing a hat, and she ran her fingers through his hair, her cheek resting against the side of his head. "He'll be ok," she murmured softly into his hair. "He'll be fine, and we can sort this whole mess out. He'll be ok. Everything's going to be alright."

Luke wanted to believe her, he really did, but at that moment, after everything that had happened, after everything that had been said, he didn't see how things would ever really be alright ever again.


	7. Chapter 7

"What are you going to tell Rory?" Luke's voice was muffled, his face hidden in Lorelai's shoulder, her arms still wrapped around him though he had long grown silent. Lorelai looked up, pulling away from him slowly.

"God… I don't know. The truth, I guess. Wait, what am I saying – of course I'm going to tell her the truth. She deserves to know the truth, Luke!" Luke was back to looking at his nervously wringing hands.

"I know, but… it'll hurt her. You know that…"

Lorelai was torn, between wanting to protect her daughter from the hurt she knew she would have to go through, and the knowledge that she really would have to tell Rory. She checked her watch – 3:15. Rory had just finished with her last class, but she knew that she would probably be heading to some sort of meeting – student government or the Franklin, most likely. It seemed like she stayed at school late every day. However, she knew that she had to tell Rory, and that telling her later when she had clearly known what was going on for longer would only upset Rory, so she gave Luke's shoulder one last comforting squeeze and, after telling him that she was going to go call Rory, made her way back outside to make the call, since she knew cell phones weren't allowed in the hospital.

"Hello?"

"Rory, honey, it's me."

"Mom?"

"Yeah. Listen, I'm at the hospital now, and…"

"Are they okay?"

"Yeah. Well… Luke's okay. Jess is…stable."

"Stable?" Rory was getting nervous. There was something strange in her mother's tone.

"Yeah. He'll…" Lorelai didn't know if she could really say that Jess would be okay. Things were so messed up just then, and Jess was unconscious, and they didn't even know what had really happened, or why he had done it.

"Mom?"

"He'll recover, sweetie. He'll…yeah. But for now he's stable, which is good."

"What happened?"

"He…um… where are you, Rory?" Rory was getting steadily more nervous by the second. Somehow, she felt that she really wouldn't want to know what had happened.

"Mom?"

"Just… tell me where you are."

"I'm just about to sit down for a meeting for the Franklin. We're supposed to start in five minutes."

"Ok." Lorelai took a deep breath. "Ok. Get your stuff and excuse yourself."

"What?"

"Just… sit down somewhere, please. This is hard."

"What's hard? Mom, you're scaring me."

"It's… just please, get somewhere less crowded." Rory excused herself, telling Paris that she needed to step out for a few minutes, and went out into the hallway, where she sat down on a bench.

"Ok, I'm in the hallway, the hallway's empty, now tell me what happened." Lorelai took another deep breath, trying to both keep her voice steady and quell the tears that threatened to fall.

"Jess… Jessattemptedsuicide," she blurted out.

"_What_?" Rory hoped desperately that she had misheard her mother's words.

"Jess attempted suicide," Lorelai repeated, more slowly, "He tried to kill himself." Rory put her hand to her mouth, trying to process the news. She knew she was going to cry, shock running through her.

"_What_?"

"Jess…"

"No. No. That's not possible. He didn't, tell me he didn't!"

"Rory, honey, I'm so sorry…"

"No!" Rory was yelling now, tears running steadily down her cheeks. "No! Tell me that you're lying! Please, please tell me that you're lying! Tell me he just tripped and sprained his ankle, or he accidentally burned his finger on the stove, or…Tell me you're lying! You're lying! He wouldn't… He wouldn't do something like that!"

"Rory… I wish I could tell you that, I really do wish I could, but then I'd be lying to you. Baby, I'm so sorry… I'm coming to pick you up, ok? Do you want to come here?" She could hear her daughter sobbing on the other end of the line. "Rory, I'm so sorry. Are you going to stay for the meeting?"

"What?" A million things were running through Rory's head, but the Franklin meeting was not one of them. Her confusion cleared after a moment, though, when she realized what her mother was talking about. "Oh. No, of course not. No. Can you come now? I… I can't stay here. I want to see him."

"Alright, babe. I'll be there as quickly as I can, alright? Where are you going to wait?"

"I'll…I'll be outside, by the parking lot."

"By that bench, beside the trees?"

"Yeah."

"Ok, I'll be there in about twenty minutes. I'm just going to go back up to tell Luke I'll be leaving, alright?"

"Ok."

"Alright, see you in a bit. I love you."

"I love you too." Rory closed her phone slowly, and buried her face in her hands. She knew she would have to go back into the classroom to get her bag, but she didn't want to face everyone just then. She was trying to stop crying, so that she could go back into the room, when the door slammed open, revealing an irritated-looking Paris.

"Rory, what's…" and that was when Paris noticed that she was in tears. "Rory, we're about to start… are you…?" Her voice was soft.

"No. No, I have to go. My mom's coming soon, and I… I'm sorry." Paris came over to sit beside her on the bench, tentatively putting a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry, I'm not really good at this whole…comforting thing. I just…yeah." Paris shook her head slightly. "What happened? Do you want me to go get your bag for you, just in case you didn't want to…well, you know." Rory nodded, grateful.

"Yeah, if you could. I just… couldn't go in there right now." The tears were still falling steadily. Rory took a shaky breath.

"Yeah." Paris stood up, her hand still on Rory's shoulder. "Yeah, I get it. I'll be right back."

Rory murmured a "thanks," and turned her attention from Paris's retreating back to the plaid of her skirt, pulling at it nervously. She heard Paris give the group some quick instructions, before barking at them to get to work, and buried her face back in her hands. She was still in shock. She had known something was going on with Jess, knew that he had been off for a while by then, but she had never thought that something like this could happen, that he would even consider doing something like that – but he had. And she couldn't help but feel like it was her fault. She should have noticed, should have seen some sort of sign. She should have done something, but she hadn't, and now he was in the hospital, and the best thing her mother could say about his condition was that he was 'stable'.

Paris came back out from the classroom where the meeting was taking place, carrying Rory's bag in one hand. She handed it to Rory, and stood in front of her for a moment, wringing her hands nervously, seeming to struggle with something for a moment, before she sat down on the bench beside Rory. "Do you… do you want to talk about it?" Rory sighed, nervously straightening out her skirt before looking back up as Paris spoke again. "I mean, you could tell me what happened, or something. It might help, you know… to talk about it. I could, bounce ideas for solutions, to whatever it is, to help you strategize your next actions, in response to whatever, or just… you know…" She was looking earnestly at Rory, and suddenly, Rory knew that they were past all the things that had gone on between them lately, and she wasn't looking at the Paris who would scheme to ruin her life in any way possible, or even the Paris with whom she had shared a slightly strained, albeit amicable, relationship after the incident with the speech at the Chilton anniversary party. She knew that then, she was looking at the Paris before all the drama, the Paris who had once called Rory her best friend. And that was when it all came spilling out of her mouth.

"My… My boyfriend, you remember Jess?" At Paris's nod, Rory continued. "We've been having some…problems, lately. We were fine up until a point, but he started acting just...off, and we went to this party that he had really been looking forward to, and after a while he just disappeared. I found him upstairs in the parents bedroom, and I could tell something was up, but he wouldn't tell me, he just kissed me and then pulled me down to the bed, and it felt like he was going to… you know… but I said no, and then he got angry, and told me that he hadn't wanted me there with him in the first place, and I left the room cause I didn't know what I had done, and I ran into Dean, if you remember him, my ex-boyfriend, and Dean got mad cause I was crying and started to go at Jess and they got into this huge fight, and basically turned the house upside down, but then the cops came, and so they had to break it up and Jess stormed off, but I stayed behind cause Lane, my friend, was throwing up in the bushes, because she was drunk, and then after that we just… avoided each other. Or, at least, I avoided him, but he didn't call me either, so I just assumed he was avoiding me too, and I wasn't ready to see him, anyway, so I didn't call or go see him, or anything.

"And then the whole incident got me thinking about our relationship, and I was mad because I realized that he never really tells me what he's feeling, he just goes off and sulks or reads or whatever when he's upset, and avoids me, and then he comes back when he's good again, and things just go back to normal. But I didn't want it to be like that, I wanted him to be able to confide in me, like I felt like I could confide in him, because being in a relationship means that you should be able to talk to the other person, right?" Paris took Rory's hand in her own, nodding, a frown creasing her brows. "But he never does, and then my Mom saw a dress and started talking about prom and I realized that he hadn't really talked to me about it even though he had promised me that he would take me to the Stars Hollow prom and with the way he was acting I was starting to think that maybe he wasn't going to take me after all, and that made me even more mad, just…because.

"And I remembered all those times when he didn't call me – all the times when I would wait alone by the phone, hoping he would call…god, that sounds so clichéd, but sometimes I'd wait for a call all night and he wouldn't, and then one weekend, when he didn't call me all Friday, even though he said he would, and didn't call me for most of Saturday night, so I went to the school team's hockey game, and he was there waiting for me after with Distiller tickets, and everything just went back to normal… so I was tired of everything being shitty and me putting up with things being shitty between us, and then just forgiving everything and going back to how it was after. And… god, I was so mad at him. I didn't know what I was going to do, but then I find out about this…"

Paris looked at her, frowning, "What…the call just now?" Rory nodded.

"My mom called to tell me…because we knew he was taken to hospital but had no way of contacting his uncle, who he lives with, who went to the hospital with him… well, she promised me she'd call me when she got news, and she was at the hospital, and she told me that… that he tried to kill himself. She told me that he was stable, but that he had attempted suicide, and that's why he was there. He… he attempted…" She trailed off, and gave into the tears again, sobs wracking her frame. Paris hesitated for a moment, but then reached over to pull her into a hug, and held her friend while she cried.

Rory pulled away a few minutes later, hurriedly wiping her eyes. "I'm so sorry, Paris, I… I kept you from the meeting, and I crinkled your shirt. And…" Paris shook her head, smiling slightly.

"It's fine… lots of people have crinkled shirts, must be a new trend or style or something…" she trailed off and they both glanced at each other, laughing nervously. Rory picked up her bag, standing up.

"Um… yeah. So my mom should be here soon, I have to meet her out in the parking lot." Paris nodded, and stood up beside her, straightening her skirt.

"I'll…come with you." Rory looked up at Paris, slightly surprised, but then gave her a small smile. Paris grinned back, and they walked out of the building together, to where Lorelai was to meet Rory in the parking lot.


	8. Chapter 8

Beyond a mumbled "hello" when she climbed into her mother's car, Rory didn't say a single word the entire way to the hospital. Lorelai kept silent as well, periodically casting worried glances at her daughter, but still having no idea what to say. When they arrived at the hospital, Rory silently followed her mother, trusting her to know where they were going. They made their way through the lobby, up the elevator to the fourth floor, and then down the hall to room 432.

Rory stopped right outside the closed door to the room, hesitating, and Lorelai put a hand on her shoulder, tentatively.

"Babe?" she whispered. Rory shook her head resolutely and opened the door, walking in.

Luke was apparently asleep, his head pillowed on his arms on the edge of Jess's bed, his body hunched over in what looked to be a rather uncomfortable position. Lorelai considered waking him, but figured he had probably tried to keep the exhaustion from getting to him for as long as possible, and would continue to do so, making any sleep that he did get extremely valuable. So, she let him be, and hovered just inside the doorway, watching as her daughter carefully made her way to the side of Jess's bed, shock and devastation clearly visible on her face. She wished there was something she could do to help her daughter, but she knew that, unless she could build a time machine and prevent any of this from ever happening, any attempt at consolation would be inadequate.

Rory ran a hand gently through Jess's hair, trying to keep herself from looking at the machines around him, to keep herself from having to see the heavy bandages on his arms, the various wires and tubes attached to him, to block the sound of the heart monitor from her ears. There were tubes running into his nose, so she didn't dare touch his face, and so settled for just continuing to run her hand through his hair, ignoring her desperate need to hold him to her.

Lorelai pulled up one of the extra chairs for Rory to sit on, and then pulled up another for herself, on the other side of Luke – and that was how they spent the rest of the day.

When a nurse came in to tell them that visiting hours were over, Lorelai gently woke Luke, and led him out of the room, down to the parking lot. He still looked like a mess, wearing his blood-covered clothes from that morning, hair messy and face creased from sleep, and Lorelai, not trusting him to drive home safely by himself (she still wasn't sure how he had done it in the morning), ushered him into the passenger seat of her own car, promising to drive him back to the hospital in the morning, before work. They made the trip back to stars hollow in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

Pulling up into one of the parking spaces beside the diner, Lorelai turned off the car, and turned to look at Luke. He was sitting hunched over, staring at his lap, his hands pressed between his knees. She didn't know what was going through his mind, but she was fairly sure that it was self-deprecating, or guilt-ridden. With a small smile she tapped him on the shoulder to shake him out of his stupor, and he lifted his head to look back at her. She nodded her head toward the window, indicating the diner. He nodded once, and leaned over to pick up the stack of pamphlets that he had left on the floor of the car by his feet.

"We'll come with you," Lorelai murmured softly, turning back around to glance at Rory, who was sitting in the back, staring blankly out the window, her forehead pressed against the glass. Getting out of the car, they made their way over to the door to the diner, which Luke went to unlock before the three of them went in. He didn't even stop to glance at the diner, however, and made his way straight to the stairs, Lorelai and Rory close behind them.

Luke wasn't sure why he was going upstairs – going upstairs would involve having to see the place where he had found Jess, and Jess's empty bed, and Jess's things, but there was something in him that needed to see it. There was even a part of him that was sure when he went upstairs that everything would be as it should be, that the bathroom would be clean, that Jess would be there – that everything that he had had to go through that day hadn't really happened. Jess, trying to commit suicide? It couldn't be real. It didn't feel real. Despite sitting in that waiting room for hours, waiting for news on Jess, despite sitting beside him, watching his nephew lie unconscious, surrounded by machines, clinging to life (or was it life that was clinging to Jess, as Jess had made it clear that he wanted out?)… Luke shook himself from his thoughts as he came to the end of the staircase, and pushed open the door to the apartment.

His pancakes from that morning were still sitting on the table, which had two empty plates set out on it. He couldn't believe he had made them just that morning – the morning felt years ago, to Luke. And that's when Luke, in all the irrationality of despair, felt anger swell inside him. The pancakes, the stupid pancakes… he couldn't believe he had tried to make pancakes for the two of them that morning. He had wanted to sit down with Jess, and try to fix things over pancakes. _Pancakes_. Pancakes couldn't fix anything – he knew that now. It was making pancakes that had kept him from finding Jess for so long. If he had set cereal out, or plain toast, or fruit…maybe he would have gone looking for Jess sooner. Maybe he would have found Jess before he was – and it was as if the events from that morning were playing behind his eyes again, taunting him, while the pancakes sat in front of him and laughed. He was across the room in a second, dumping the pancakes in the garbage, and then staring at the empty plate in his hands for a moment before whipping it across the room at the opposite wall. It shattered loudly, the pieces falling to the ground in what felt like slow motion. Luke was almost dizzy with anger, and stood there, shaking, while Lorelai and Rory looked on in shock from behind him. He then stormed over to the bathroom, the broken door having been removed that morning, and sank down to the ground, leaning against the tub, his fingers landing on the blood that was still on the floor, dried in some places, but still wet where it had gathered deepest. He wished the door wasn't broken – he really needed to scream, or yell, or cry, or maybe break another plate. And Lorelai and Rory were still there… God, they had seen him throw a plate. Shame joined the anger and frustration and grief, and he buried his head in his hands.

Rory and Lorelai couldn't see Luke from where they were standing, but it suddenly hit Lorelai that Luke had mentioned finding Jess in the bathroom.

"Rory, go downstairs." Rory turned to look at her mother, who was still staring in the direction of the bathroom, eyes wide.

"But…"

"Downstairs, Rory, _now_." Lorelai hated having to raise her voice with her daughter, especially with the day that they had had, but she never wanted Rory to have to see what she knew was waiting inside that bathroom, just out of view. "_Now_, Rory."

Rory sighed and turned around, heading back downstairs to the diner where she sat down at one of the stools on the counter, pillowing her head on her arms. It had been a long day, and she still had homework to do when she got home. She glanced at her watch – 10:45. She would need to stay up past midnight, for sure, but all she wanted to do at that point was curl up under her covers on her bed and sleep until everything was normal, and the world was right again. And yet she knew she never could.

---

Lorelai listened as the door swung shut after Rory, her footsteps pattering down the staircase. Quietly, nervously, she made her way to the bathroom, shock coursing through her as it came into view. It was as horrific as she had imagined – glass, pills, the _blood_. Luke was sitting in the middle of it all, face buried in his knees, hands gripping his hair.

"Oh, Luke…" She hesitated before entering the bathroom, but then went in, and crouched down on the floor beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"I was hoping it wouldn't be here."

"I know, Luke."

"I wanted to come home and find him lying on the couch, reading a book… or to come back to a busy diner and have him yell at me for being gone all day and leaving him to run the thing by himself."

"Luke…"

"I'd hoped that maybe I'd imagined it all, and maybe I was only in the hospital because I was going crazy, and that I could come home to Jess, and I could tell him about the crazy dream I had, and then he could offer to play poker at five bucks a hand, or light up a cigarette or leave with one of his books, or something…just something normal." He let out a choked laugh. "But no, it's all here. It's all here, Lorelai…" He laughed again, and the laughter quickly turned into sobs as she sat down beside him and pulled him to her, much like she had just that afternoon, in the hospital. "It's all here."

Lorelai stood up resolutely, pulling at Luke to stand with her. "Come on, Luke, up you get." He looked at her confusedly. "We're going home." Luke looked guilty at that.

"I'm sorry for keeping you. I shouldn't have… and all day, too, Lorelai, I…" Lorelai shook her head, cutting him off.

"You're coming with us. To our house. And you're going to have a nice shower, in a bathroom that isn't torn apart, change, sleep, and we'll go back to the hospital tomorrow. And then, on our way back, we're picking up a new door, and then coming back to fix all this up. In the meantime, would you like to order Chinese, pizza, Indian food, or something from Al's Pancake World?" Luke looked at her in shock.

"What?"

"Chinese, pizza, Indian, or Al's daily special?"

"I…um… It doesn't really…" Lorelai raised an eyebrow at him.

"Have you eaten at all today, Luke?" Luke sighed, realizing he hadn't.

"No, but… you don't have to …"

"Well too bad for you, mister," she jabbed a finger on his chest. "Now go pack your stuff, get anything of Jess's you might want to take to the hospital tomorrow morning when we go, and I'll go order something so we can pick it up on the way home. Will you eat pizza? We can even put vegetables on half of it if you want." Luke sighed again, gratefulness spreading through him.

"Yeah. That… would be great. Thanks." Lorelai patted him on the shoulder and went downstairs to make the call, leaving Luke alone to gather his things.


End file.
